BREAKING NEWS: $5M gift to Children's Hospital paves way for kids mental health program

Oct. 14--The Connor Group and Dayton Children's Hospital announced today a deal to create a model for mental and behavioral health care that will help Dayton's most vulnerable children live as healthy as possible today and into the future.

A new program at Dayton Children's will integrate behavioral health care into a pediatrician's well-child visit and could become a national model for preventing mental health crisis. It will be administered at the newly-renamed Connor Child Health Pavilion on the east edge of Dayton Children's main campus.

The project is made possible through one of the largest gifts in Dayton Children's history, which is a $5 million, five-year initial investment from The Connor Group Kids & Community Partners, the nonprofit arm of the local real estate investment firm. Dayton Children's will raise $3 million in matching funds. Connor Group officials, who have been working on the deal with Dayton Children's for 18 months, could renew the partnership at the end of five years.

The program will provide counseling, psychology and psychiatric services to an estimated 4,000 children during well-child visits, intensive outpatient therapy to an additional 1,400 children, as well as parent education and community-based resources to more than 5,000 families. The program also establishes a psychology fellowship program and research project.

"We've looked all over the country and we haven't seen a model like this, one that provides this continuum of care," Dr. Jonathan Thackeray, chief medical officer of population health at Dayton Children's, said in a statement. "We hope this becomes the national standard for providing the very best care for children to position them for lifelong success."

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